


Run, Eat, Sleep, Repeat

by vinegardog



Category: Farscape
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 22:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3357035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegardog/pseuds/vinegardog





	Run, Eat, Sleep, Repeat

Mindless episode filler set at the beginning of A Clockwork Nebari in S2

Characters are not mine, I just abuse them and put them back in the hope that one day we will have some more televised FS adventures! Hey, hope is what keeps us going, right?

Rated PG

Word count: 4344ish

Warning: Yet again this started as something else but took its own direction half way through. I have given up trying to control anything spewing out of my mind!

Thanks once again to A Damned Scientist for reading this and coming back to me with a betaed version at the speed of light!

**Run, Eat, Sleep, Repeat (PG)**

Coat flapping behind him, thigh muscles straining against his leather trousers, John Crichton ran.

And while he ran his mind - which without any doubt worked in mysterious ways as his crewmates were only too fond of reminding him - couldn’t stop flitting back to the German movie Caroline had dragged him to, kicking and screaming, at the local arthouse movie theatre just a few weeks before his fateful test flight on Farscape 1. “Run Lola Run” was the title of it and hell but didn’t he feel like that red-haired chick! With the only difference that her running had only lasted 20 minutes, while his own had started the moment he had emerged from this side of the rabbit hole and was still happening with alarming regularity.

His life in the last year and a half had pretty much been all about running – running interspersed with brief lulls of terrified waiting for the onset of the next reason for running.

Yep, the whole thing pretty much sucked, the only plus side being that he had managed to stay alive for much longer than anybody would have expected (himself included) and that his being alive was largely due to the fact that a certain drop-dead-gorgeous ex-Peacekeeper babe had somehow taken upon herself the role of John-Crichton’s “in-extremis-ass-saver”. ‘But where the hell was she now? And where was Chiana?’ John frantically wondered. Was this going to be the final chapter to his stellar career in running, right when he was getting pretty good at it? Yep, life sucked big time and then some!

With those questions and thoughts swirling around in his brain, John wasted a fraction of a second to twist his neck and look back to assess how much ground his pursuers had made up in the last 10 minutes and… frell and dren! ‘That was a big mistake, Johnny boy!’ He berated himself. The four men were a lot closer - a helluva lot closer - than the last time he’d looked! With panic constricting his throat he lowered his head, pumped his arms even harder, felt the lactic acid build up in his quads, bit back a moan of strain and pain and continued running for his life.

Had he been asked why he was running, John Crichton would have in all honesty been able to answer that he hadn’t a frelling clue why. All he knew was that one moment he and Chiana had entered a commercial emporium with the innocent intention of exchanging goods for provisions and the next moment four bulky (but obviously quite fast) characters had emerged from the back of the premises and come at him like freight trains. From the corner of his eye he’d had barely time to see Chi, quick and silent as a cat, jimmy a window open with what looked like a five pronged eating utensil she had snatched from one of the shelves, slink out of it and melt into a side alley’s shadows before yours truly, the human chump, had been left alone to face the unfathomable wrath of his assailants.

Also, had John Crichton been asked before today if, when cornered into a head-on confrontation, he was the “fight or flee” type of man, he would have valiantly answered that, hell yeah, he would stay and fight every time. Well, this was as good a time as any to find out a hard truth about himself: he now knew beyond any reasonable doubt that fleeing had its undeniable attractions.

_________________________

Chiana stood in the shadows of the alleyway and waited for the shouts of the four pursuers to die out in the distance before quickly and stealthily making her way towards the spaceport where only a few arns ago they had left their pod.

It was admittedly too late at this point but she now realized her mistake: she should have stayed on Moya. In her defence though she had been so extremely, abysmally, enormously bored that even the remote chance - and she had honestly thought it extremely unlikely that wanted beacons from her home world would have found their way this deep into the Uncharted Territories - of being recognised and tracked down by the Establishment had almost seemed appealing. Well, if not exactly appealing at least… momentarily diverting! Only as recently as a couple of weekens ago, the others had once again left her behind to go parley with Crais on Talyn and even though that time she had avoided the harrowing experience of being interrogated and judged by the hideous Plokavians, she still would have preferred to live through a hair-raising, adrenalin-pumping adventure such as that one rather than spend another microt just yawning her life away on Moya in skin-crawling tedium.

Her plan had been simple when she had come up with it: cajole John into taking her along to the planet; spend some time away from the restricted confines of Moya; maybe flirt her way to a few free drinks in a local refreshment house; find out in whatever way necessary some information on the slave auctions taking place nearby to bring back to D’Argo in the hope it would help with the search for his son; snurch a trinket or two just to keep her skills honed and, on their return to Moya, piss Aeryn off by regaling her with greatly embellished and wildly imaginative stories of the grand old time she had had with Crichton. A pretty easy and fool-proof plan which, up to a point, had worked out like a charm. John had caved in and taken her along for the ride after just a few feeble and totally inadequate attempts at faked resistance. Under John’s disapproving stare, she had then indeed been treated to many a free raslak in a tavern by some local men who had also been surprisingly forthcoming with intel on upcoming slave auctions in this sector of space. All in all a great success.

However, at some point, things had started to get a little more complicated, if not exactly ugly, when the men she had conned into believing that she would willingly and generously repay for both drinks and info had realised that she really had no intention of living up to her implied carnal promises. But what was Crichton’s problem? Had they or had they not managed to sneak out of the bar before anything too unpleasant had actually taken place? So why the hissy fit? Really, John needed to relax - Aeryn’s influence on him was becoming toxic! Whether he chose to believe it or not she had always had a handle on the situation!

On the flip side, she now had to accept that what had followed their narrow escape from the bar had been in fact her fault and that Crichton would probably be right in being upset - that is of course if he ever got the chance to find out what had actually happened. After exiting the tavern in a hurry, they had split up to increase their chances of escape and decided to meet up again half an arn later at the other end of town, close to the main market area.

On her roundabout way there, by complete chance, she had come across a wanted beacon. Despite having heard first-hand the announcement of her name and the details of the rich reward for her capture and seen with her own eyes the (altogether unflattering) projection of her own image, she had still opted to keep this unpleasant development a secret in the hope of prolonging her coveted freedom from Moya by a few more microns. She had excused the heedless decision to herself by reasoning that they did indeed need the provisions they had come for, so she had nonchalantly chosen to leave John in the dark about it - what you don’t know, doesn’t hurt you being her philosophy on the matter. She had therefore rendezvoused with him and proceeded with their shopping activities without a further thought as to the possible consequences of her silence.

Well, this was not the first time she had been wrong and, although she would never have admitted it openly, she guessed it would not be the last either.

What she now suspected had happened was that some of the locals had spotted them in the bar, recognised her, assumed that Crichton was her Peacekeeper escort, planned to capture them both but had then probably lost them when they had split up only, somehow, to track them down again when they had entered the market place together.

Luckily for her she had been standing in the shadows at the back of the vendor’s premises checking out the most suitable merchandize to snurch when those four brutes had come charging in, greedy for the generous ransom on her head. They had obviously overlooked her, hidden as she was by loaded shelves, and decided that Crichton was as good a hostage as any to take, given that the Nebari fugitive was nowhere to be seen. Once they had captured him, they were likely planning to use whatever force necessary to make him reveal her whereabouts.

Frell! She really didn’t want anything bad to happen to Crichton, not on her account. Nerri had warned her when they had left Nebari Prime on the run: do not get attached, never get attached. Do not get to care for people. Caring is a weakness that the Establishment will use against you. But when had she ever listened to good advice? She had come to like – no, that was a lie – she had come to love John Crichton like a brother and the thought that he might come to harm because of her made her blood freeze in her veins. She had to help him. No matter what, she had to find a way to get assistance to him before it was too late and to do that she needed to get to the comms on the pod as fast as possible, summon Aeryn and D’Argo to the rescue and get herself and Crichton out of the deep dren they were currently wading in.  
________________________________________

“Of all the stupid...” Aeryn started saying with vitriolic disgust after the call for help from Moya’s pod had been urgently patched through to her on Command by Pilot. Chiana had tried her best to sound reassuring and had even managed to throw a couple of flippant remarks in to play down the seriousness of the situation while relaying back to Aeryn news of the presence of the beacons and the fact that they had been followed and attacked. Her tone of voice though, as firm as she had tried to keep it, had had an undercurrent of strain and fear that wasn’t lost on Aeryn.

“Aeryn, I... I know you would like to shoot me right now but is there any chance you could shut up and... and listen to me for a microt?” Chiana half pleaded, half snarked back over the comms, interrupting the burgeoning tirade. Then with sincere intensity and a quiver in her voice, she added: “John is in trouble and needs help! And I mean, immediate help!”

That was enough to stop any further recriminations from Aeryn. With her outwardly cool military discipline perfectly masking to even the most careful of observers the sudden fearful queasiness in her gut at the news about Crichton’s predicament, she strode firmly out of Command towards the cargo bay and her prowler, all the while firing questions and instructions in a clipped tone.

“Chiana, where did you last see John and what sort of trouble is he in?”

“He was running away from four Sebaceans in hot pursuit. Don’t... don’t know if they were armed. He took off in a south-east direction towards the outer perimeter of the town... but he could be anywhere by now! Should I go... go out and look for him?”

“No, you stay where you are. It’s not safe for you now that you have been recognized. Power the engines up and be ready to fly back. John might be attempting to circle back to the pod and if he does, I want the two of you to get out of there as fast as you can, understood?” Then without even taking a breath she continued:

“Rygel, get moving, you are with me!”

Rygel, who had quietly witnessed the heated exchange with only mild interest, almost fell off his throne-sled at the sharp command directed at him and momentarily choked on the food cube he was munching. However he thought it prudent to whir along after Aeryn trying to keep up with her fast pace, all the while protesting weekly:

“But... but surely D’Argo would be a better choice if there’s going to be fighting.... and danger and....”

Without hesitation, Aeryn put an end to his stuttering objections:

“No, I want D’Argo to stay here as back-up and aide to Pilot in case we come back with enemies hot on our tail and we need to starburst away with little or no notice. You will act as my spotter as I make a recon flight over the town to locate Crichton... “

“But... but...” Rygel’s ears drooped wretchedly low at the thought of being co-pilot to an ex-Peacekeeper in deep denial about being in love with the pain-in-the-eema inferior alien she was about to attempt to rescue. He knew she would turn the mission into a suicide one before giving up on the hapless Human and the last place he wanted to be was by her side when things went south as they were bound to do. Further words of protest failed the Hynerian however when faced by her grim determination, so quietly mumbling to himself about the rotten luck he seemed to have been cursed with since Bishan had upended his perfect life, Rygel followed Aeryn and took his seat in the back of the prowler casting a forlorn, loving glance of farewell at the living ship that had become his home.

“Pilot, be ready to deploy the docking web. The pod may be under attack by the time it leaves the planet and its systems might become damaged before Chiana or Crichton manage to land it back safely...” Aeryn continued with her instructions while starting up her ship.

“Yes, Officer Sun. Moya and I are standing by. Be safe!” Pilot replied.

“D’Argo! I need you to...”

D’Argo’s deep rumbling voice interrupted her: “I know, Aeryn. Pilot has brought me up to speed. I am already on Command. Bring them back... whatever it takes! I am opening the cargo doors, you should be ready for take off in 20 microts... and Aeryn? Be careful!”  
_____________________________________________

John knew that he probably only had about five more minutes left before his legs and lungs gave way.

He also now knew how Phidippides must have felt running from Marathon to Athens... but didn’t the poor bastard’s heart explode after his heroic feat? John’s mind suddenly flashed back to his high-school history classes... yes... yes! The man had indeed croaked it thus immortalising his name in the history books of Earth by becoming a symbol of bravery and self-sacrifice. Frell that! If his own heart exploded on this godforsaken planet, nobody else would ever know why - no, correction, never mind anybody else - he would never know the frell why! Ooooh no, Mama Crichton’s boy was gonna hang in there as long as possible just because, if by some miracle he managed to survive the day, he wanted to have the satisfaction to strangle Chiana with his own bare hands after dragging the truth out of her. He had no concrete evidence of it, but he just knew that this was gonna turn out to be her fault!

Digging deep and summoning up the last dregs of energy left in his body, John took a sharp right into a narrow thoroughfare in the hope that his sense of direction had not let him down. According to his internal navigational system, on which he had blindly relied upon in his attempt to circle back to his only means of escape from this hellhole, at the end of this street he should be able to see not too far ahead in the distance the spaceport where, hopefully, Moya’s pod was still parked, waiting for him... and, thank God and all the Saints, there it was! Its entrance was right ahead, maybe 500 yards across a large square... which was at that moment jam packed with what looked like an enormous flock of purple, six-legged, alien... sheep? Damn his luck! The animals were being slowly corralled by a young boy towards market and formed a living, slow crawling wall between him and the ultimate safety of his transport. He had no choice but to come to a full stop while desperately searching with his eyes for a way through. Panting and hiccupping, hands on knees, a stitch in his side, John tried to shoo the dim, placid, bulky creatures out of his way but failed to make any impact whatsoever on their slow, compact advance.

‘This is it! Alien purple, six-legged sheep are gonna be your undoing, John!’ He told himself, unsure as to whether he should sob girlishly or laugh hysterically about it. In the end he however settled on a third more manly option and plastered a grim, hard look on his face. He turned around, took in the overall picture and quickly did the math. He reckoned he had about 15 seconds before his pursuers would be on top of him. He calculated that if he was lucky and Aeryn’s training held true and his hands did not shake and the men in pursuit were not armed with any firing weapons of their own, he might get the chance to drop two of them once they came into range of Winona before the other two would unavoidably get the drop on him. These odds sucked... just like his life did but as his grandma used to say ‘when life hands you lemons, make lemonade”!  
_____________________________________________

Aeryn skillfully entered the planet’s atmosphere and immediately started flying her prowler in a cross star search pattern over the town - hands firm on the control column but heart thudding wildly in her chest.

“Can you see anything?” She asked Rygel for the fifth time in the last 80 microts, already knowing the answer and yet unable to stop herself from asking again.

The Hynerian ignored her just as he had done the last two times she had spoken but his keen eyes kept sweeping along the ground in search of the Human or of any clues that might give them an indication as to his whereabouts.

Without letting up and with determined concentration Rygel let his eyes scan, one after the other, in fast succession, images of rooftops, narrow and wide streets, green recreational areas dotting and breaking up the monotony of the town greyness, a marketplace filled with people and produce, the spaceport with its many parked craft including Moya’s pod, a large square filled with manquats - deliciously tasty animals that were served at all Hynerian banquets worthy of their name....

“Wait! Aeryn, wait! Veer back now!” Rygel suddenly shouted jolting the Sebacean into a fast banking manoeuvre to bring the prowler around. “I can see him, son of a hezmot! I can see Crichton... look! Down there on the edge of the square on the left... can you see him?”

Aeryn just nodded her head once. Her own eyes had locked onto the Human like laser beams but now she feared they had found him just a few microts too late to be able to save him. It was obvious that his escape had been hindered by the herd of manquats and that he had been forced to stop and make a last desperate stand. As if in slow motion, she saw the four men Chiana had mentioned closing in fast on him; she saw John turn around to face them standing tall; she saw him calmly unholster his pulse pistol; she saw him firmly grip its butt with both hands the way she had taught him to do; she saw him take aim and fire. Heart in her throat she waited and prayed to see the bolt of energy leave the gun and hit its target but, instead, she saw... absolutely nothing! John’s pulse pistol had jammed!

Aeryn and Rygel gasped in unison before Aeryn let out a string of Sebacean expletives that would have made the most hardened of soldiers proud.

John, totally defenceless and now looking deflated and defeated, was about to be captured right under her eyes! Frell that! No frelling way she was gonna let that happen! It only took Aeryn a fraction of a microt to come up with a strategy and jump into action to implement it. She sharply banked her prowler around once again, she pushed the controls forward and took the spacecraft into an almost perpendicular dive towards the ground avoiding collision with the upper floors of one of the buildings encroaching on the square by only a couple of denches.

“What the yotz do you think you are doing, you mad tralk?” Rygel exclaimed with a strangled squeal and with horrified certainty that those would be his ever last words, his little hands clinging desperately to the sides of his jumpseat.

“I am creating a stampede! Hang on tight, Rygel!” Aeryn snapped before levelling her prowler off just a few metres off the ground and boosting the engines into a mighty roar that startled the manquats into scattering wildly every which way.  
_____________________________________

“Oh no, no, no, no! You must be frigging kidding me!” Winona - his loyal, reliable Winona - had chosen this moment to effing jam!

John Crichton considered himself an optimistic person. Hope was what kept him going, what kept him upbeat and smiley through the worst of times, but sometimes... sometimes it just came a point when you had to accept the fact that you weren’t gonna make it. Sometimes you just had to accept that giving up was the only choice and defeat was unavoidable.

This was one of those times, so he lowered his arms and gave up the fight.

Right at that moment however, in what felt like a surreal turn of events born of wishful thinking more than reality, John heard the prowler’s engines roar. He looked up in disbelief and took in with awe the menacing but sexy sleek lines of the Peacekeeper craft dive-bombing in his direction.

“Aeryn! Aeryn Sun, baby, you made it!” His brain silently screamed while his eyes filled with tears - tears of relief because she was there and tears of dread because, despite her being there, it might still be too late for him to get out of this mess and get the chance to lay his eyes on her beautiful face again.

Then, suddenly, it clicked with him what she was trying to do. Clever girl! He swiftly looked around and saw that his best chance for escape from the stampede that was about to engulf him was to grab what looked to him like some sort of garbage can and roll it against the wall of the closest building. He then jumped on it and used it as a boost to climb up and reach for the overhang jutting out above the doorway. Arms shaking, he finally lifted himself up onto the ledge and out of the way of the oncoming frenzied animals.

His four tormentors, a little slower on the uptake, realized the danger a microt too late and were swept away by the crazed manquat herd.

After a few minutes of chaos and confusion, John saw a safe enough opening among the sea of running bodies. He jumped down off the ledge and engaged in a last spring towards the pod where Chiana was waiting to help him up the steep steps. He had barely made it through the hatch when she locked it behind him, turned around and launched herself in his arms squeezing him tight enough to hurt his already sore ribs and bringing him down to his knees with her unbound enthusiasm and relief.

“You made it, Old Man! I knew you would! I... I frelling well knew you would!” She squealed before Aeryn’s voice reached them over the comms.

“Has John made it back to the pod? Chiana? Crichton? Somebody answer me!”

“It’s good to hear your voice, Aeryn! Yeah, I’m here! I’m safe!” John croaked back. “That was hands down the best flying I have ever seen, Aeryn! You are a helluva pilot, baby!”

“Good to hear your voice too, John.” Aeryn replied in that steady but low and modulated tone of voice of hers that gave him thrilling shivers like no other voice could. “The two of you get out of there now! Get the pod back to Moya. Rygel and I will land and search for the beacons. Now that we are here we might as well try and take out as many as possible. We need to be able to stay in this area for the slave auctions and the last thing we need is bounty hunters on Chiana’s tail hunting Moya down. See you in a while. Aeryn out.”

“Beacons?” John turned to Chiana with a murderous look. “Chiana? What is she talking about?”

Chiana quickly made her way to the pilot seat, avoided John’s stare and flippantly said: “You heard her, Crichton! Let’s get out of here. We don’t want her to go all Peacekeeper commando on our eemas for disobeying her orders, do we?”  
__________________________________

Aeryn had just found a fourth beacon and was about to dispose of it when the cold steel of a pulse weapon pressed hard into the back of her neck. A quick look backwards, immediately punished by increased pressure of the muzzle into her skin, revealed to her a shock of white hair on a scarred and bleeding female Nebari face. The low, menacing voice that whispered into her ear made her hair stand on end: “My name is Varla, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I am looking for Chiana... and I think you can help me find her. Now, please wear this collar. And try not to resist me. I would hate to have to shoot you. ”

The End.


End file.
